Zimbabwe after Mugabe became one sad story. Once the breadbasket of Africa it became recipient of food aid by the United Nations World Food Program (UN-WFP) in a couple of decades of mismanagement and corruption.
The history of Zimbabwe is interesting for the multiple radical changes in fate in a relatively short time.
Colonized by the Cecil Rhodes, from a license obtained from the local ruler, the British chartered company – British South Africa Company – developed mining in the region expanding its operation considerably.
The territory was named Rodhesia by the BSAC and South Rodhesia (today Zimbabwe) and North Rodhesia (today Zambezi) became the official names. Nationalistic movements and ethnic based rebellions and revoltes moved the British government to annex South Rodhesia in 1923.
Discriminatory ethnicity based laws restricted the ownership of land to whites was instated in 1930 creating a proto apartheid state.
The long path to independence would take 25 years. In 1965 Ian Smith unilaterally declarared independence, not recognized by the international community, for the British government had a policy of not granting independence unless there was a majority rule in the future country. The non recognition of Rhodesia and the sanctions applied to Rhodesia due to their apartheid like policies weakened the provisory government and the opportunity to control a large former British colony created a collection of conflicts, including a civil war fueled by two communists powers, China for the Zapu (Ndebele ethnic group) and the Soviet Union for the Zanu (Shona ethnic group) guerrillas and the incumbent administrator.
Peace would only come in 1980 after two years of efforts to cease hostilities. Britain recognized independence, elections were called and there was a promise not to retaliate against the minority white population.
Robert Mugabe became the prime minister in the 1980s election, being the leader of the ZANU guerrilla supported by the Chinese Communist Party. One must remember that this is Communist China in 1979, three years after the death of Mao Zedong and still impoverished. Mugabe was a cunning negotiator and manipulator, having being hosted by Zamora Machel in 1975 and later convinced Angola´s dictator to support his bid to lead the ZANU guerrilla politically, but not involving himself in the armed conflict directly, position delegated to Josiah Tongogara. Tongogara died in a suspicious car accident with alleged involvement from Mugabe. This was one of the several misterious deaths of those who could someday be a competitor for power.
The path to prosperity remained blocked by conflicts. Tribal rivalry continued to separate the population and the perceived takeover of the country by the Shonas who are the 90% of the population and the Ndebeles, who make up most of the rest 9% and Kalanga and other minorities the 1%.
Massacres intended to eliminating “traitors” and “dissidents” to the government of Robert Mugabe were rife although Mugabe would go on to call for unity and reconciliation.
During the first few years of independence Mugabe tried to bring in the opposition to his government cabinet. The international community helped prop up the economy with aids and direct investments. The country grew on average 3% year on year for the first ten years since independence in 1980.
Initially Mugabe tried to portray a moderate reconciliatory attitude towards the whites, who owned some 43% of the farms and were an important source of revenues for the country. There were promises that land would never be expropriated, although Mugabe declared himself a socialist and had the intent of implementing socialism in Zimbabwe.
From 1980 to 1987 Robert Mugabe was the prime minister and in 1987, he convinced parliament to change the constitution and make him president with executive powers, making him the sole ruler of the country, diminishing the powers of the parliament.
Several problems were common to all countries and the 1980s were full of economic crisis due to the oil shocks of 1973 and 1977 and the rise of the LIBOR (London InterBank Offered Rate) increased debt payments many times creating a recession in many countries, including Zimbabwe. The tools used to sort that crisis in Zimbabwe were not efficient and the country started a series of bad choices that would culminate in the current crisis today.
The huge rise in population in the country pressured the labor market and one of the solutions created by president Mugabe was to decree the forceful sale of arable land in the hands of the white minority at an arbitrated price with no recourse to justice. This promise was broken to the white minority to appease the protests of the majority.
The redistribution of land was marred with corruption and Mugabe would go on public condemning the corruption and promising hard measures while his own close family were part of the corruption scheme, amassing large portions of land. The incompetence of the administrators upset the donors who withdrew their support for the land redistribution, creating another shortage of funds, that made just payment for the land expropriated even more difficult.
Zimbabwe also felt the shrinkage of the tobacco industry worldwide. The 1990s campaign to end the free propaganda of tobacco products and the increased regulamentation of the tobacco consumption hit its production strongly. This was only remediated by the 2010s when China became a big importer of the crop.
The romantic idea of farming for subsistence was predominant in Socialist planners of the 1990s. This created problems due to lack of scale for the transportation of the produces and even lack of the roads to transport them, if successfully harvested. This contrasts to the big commercial farms model of before. While up to the 1990s Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa, today the country children are malnourished and dependent on UN food aid programs.
The country solution to these problems was subsidies, handouts and when there was shortage of funds, printing more money. The fiscal ineptitude created a compounded effect on the economy. The unemployment rate is 5%, very low for African standards, but most of this employment is on SOEs, the pay is low, but government ruled by a dictator president, implemented price controls, which reduced the supply of goods as well as creating a black market for the goods.
The neighbour country of Congo was at War on and off since 1996, when Rwanda went after the Hutus genocidaires who were hiding in the Kivu reagion. Congo was in turmoil since the “Congo Crisis” in the 1960s, with multiple ethnic groups just living together under the rule of Mobutu Sesse Seko, who was aged and frail and could not master the grievances. The conflict persisted after the death of Mobutu, who was succeeded by Lawrence Kabila. Congo changed the name to Zaire during the Fist Congo War. The second Congo war ensued when rebellions at the mineral eastern region of Zaire began to with support of the neighbor countries. The war increased with the inflammatory propaganda and several cities witnessed attacks on the Tutsis minorities, which engaged the Rwandan Tutsi government to attack the west coast of Zaire.
Mugabe was a supporter of Kabila and engaged army and airforce resources in the conflict. A conflict that would drain the resource strapped country and create the hyperinflation.
By 2003 the crisis was set and hyperinflation set in. The old but still aggressive Mugabe would not relent to the orthodox measures necessary to control the price spiral. In this crisis, half of the population of 11 million Zimbabweans fled the country and the remainder half lives on the help of NGOs, who took over the position of provider for the destitute from the government which is broke.
Nevertheless Mugabe held to power, keeping on printing money that inflation reach 500 billion percent per year. There was once a one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill, which was worth 0,40 American dollars.
This forced Zimbabwe to abandon its currency and adopt the American dollars as a currency. This debacle forced Mugabe to accommodate opposition demands for changes in the constitution to curtail presidential powers and made the country somehow stable for a while.
But not for long. Later 2013, Mugabe won the elections – which he apparently conceded were rigged – and changed the constitution again, swelling the government with new hires. Moreover, by 2017 the government started to exchange the dollar deposits in the bank for “bonds”, equivalent to the American currency. But this money is only good to pay the salaries of the bloated civil servants contingent and inflation on the “bond” is already high, for this “bonds”, called Zolllars are not backed by any assets.
The crisis assumed new hights and to add insult to injury, Mugabe planned to place his wife as the new president and sacked the vice president Emmerson Mnagagwa. This triggered a coup d´etat by the military who placed Robert Mugabe under house arrest and appointed Emmerson Mnagagwa the new president of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe and his socialist method have deprieved Zimbabwe of an estimate of 40 Billion dollars in GDP per year. The destruction of the bread basket of Africa not only starved their own population, but also created risks for neighbors.
Robert Mugabe, who died on September 6th, 2019 in Singapore where he was being treated for ailmenst.
Emmerson Mnagagwa is a long time companion of Mugabe and holds many of the same views, but spared his friend life in the coup. He is a supporter of “Indigenisation and Black Economic Empowerment”, which is designed to support local businessmen. This has not yielded the progress the people deserve. The agricultural output has been reduced and trade has also being reduced under the program.
Mnagagwa is more of Mugabe if less vitriolic and has not turned the country around.
The Covid-19 crisis in the world have not helped much, but Zimbabwe excess deaths were not high at 374 deaths per 1 million population.
One can only expect that the next chapter of Zimbabwe will be of a turnaround to prosperity.
References
The Economic Decline of Zimbabwe (gettysburg.edu)cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=ger
Dinner with Mugabe_ the untold story of a freedom fighter — Holland, Heidi — 2008 — Johannesburg ; New York_ Penguin Books
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe gets busy creating ‘fiction money’ | Reuters www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN16Y1NO/
Mugabe and the Politics of Security in Zimbabwe — Abiodun Alao — 2012 — McGill-Queen’s University Press
The struggle for Zimbabwe_ battle in the bush — Gann, Lewis H., 1924-1997; Henriksen, Thomas H — 1981 — New York_ Praeger